Notes & Links: 'The Road to Unfreedom'

Timothy Snyder gave us much to discuss in The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. Thank you to everyone who joined the conversation.

Links for Further Exploration

During our conversation, a number of books, videos, and other resources came up to delve further into the topics of The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. These include:

• Timothy Synder's website

• Snyder's "Thinking about" audio blog posts.

• Video of Snyder discussing the book at a 2018 Politics and Prose event. In this talk, he reviews the genesis of the book and his key ideas.

• Snyder presenting the ideas of the philosopher Ivan Ilyin: "The fascist philosopher behind Vladimir Putin’s information warfare"

• Concluding section of the film 2014 Sunstroke, directed by Nikita Mikhalkov, who, according to Snyder, has been one of the promoters of Ilyin's ideas. (The scene referenced in the book appears at 12:58.)

• Snyder's short book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century was recently released in a graphic edition.

• Anne Applebaum's November 2021 interview on Fresh Air (NPR): "Why the Autocrats Are Winning"

• A few related titles we read in the last few years:

  • This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality by Peter Pomerantsev

  • Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright

  • The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen

  • All the Kremlin’s Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin by Mikhail Zygar

  • Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia by Anne Garrels

  • The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt

  • Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town by Brian Alexander

• The US Department of States' November 16 statement on the elections in Nicaragua and new sanctions

Our December Discussion

Our December selection is the novel Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi. This novel won the Man Booker International Prize and is the first book by a female Omani author to be translated into English.

About the book:

"In the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who chooses to refuse all offers and await a reunion with the man she loves, who has emigrated to Canada. These three women and their families, their losses and loves, unspool beautifully against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Oman, a country evolving from a traditional, slave-owning society into its complex present. Through the sisters, we glimpse a society in all its degrees, from the very poorest of the local slave families to those making money through the advent of new wealth." (more)

When:

Sunday, December 19

11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Pacific Time

This discussion will take place online. To receive the details to participate, please submit the subscribe field below.